What Dreams May Come
by AlexaBones
Summary: CoLS spoiler alert! Clary's nightmares are dominated by the same scene, over and over. It's time to tell Jace the truth about what happened before the Burren, but how will he react when he hears what Sebastian has planned for her? How can he comfort her when his touch harbors the fire of heaven?


Just a one-shot sparked by the wind-down of City of Lost Souls: "Clary thought of him, of the face that she'd been trying to forget, that haunted her nightmares and her waking dreams. _You asked me who I belong to." _Just so you know, they share a bed but have separate sheets, so that's how they manage to be together without literally bursting into flame! Unfortunately I own nothing, it all belongs to Cassie Clare.

_Clary found herself alone in a dark forest. She knew not what time of day or night it was, the balcony created by the upper braches of the trees allowed not even transient light. She began to tread steadily onwards though the undergrowth, searching for Jace. She was always searching for Jace. She spent what felt like hours scrambling over logs and being slashed across the face by the thorny weeds that strangled the trunks of the trees, feeling gradually more feverish with worry, until she abruptly came to a clearing. _

_The trees parted and the green space before her transformed into Lake Lyn, and Jace lay dead on the shore. There was no Valentine here, no Raziel or Sebastian, just her; alone with the lifeless body of her love, surrounded by a bloody halo of red and gold. She ran to his side, and despite not knowing when she had started crying, her face was wet with tears. Clary laid his head in her lap and stroked his hair, choking back a sob. He looked so peaceful, his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones just as they did when he slept in past sunrise. She could pretend he was asleep, stay with him and delude herself into thinking he'll wake up... but for how long? She softly whispered his name, and ran her fingers across his jawbone, cool to the touch. _

_The direction of the wind shifted, sending ripples across the surface of the lake, momentarily distracting her. Clary looked down to find her lap empty. A hand appeared in her field of vision, one that she recognised well - scarred with thin fingers and almost golden skin. Her heart leapt into her throat as she was pulled to her feet, straight into a tight embrace. Clary revelled in it. Her head fit perfectly into the crook of his neck and she melted into him... but something was off. She could feel her heart hammering within her... and she could feel his. _Nobody's heart beat like Jace's.

"_Sebastian!" she cried, reeling in shock. Suddenly his arms were iron bars around her, and she was back in that awful apartment. Blood dried on the walls and her bones ached with dread as he backed her up against the wall. _

"_My dear sister," he said, a wicked grin creeping its way onto his lips, "no more tears. I told you I would find you; we're too alike, you and I." Clary squirmed in his vice-like grip, there was no room to attack, nor was she able to get away. His eyes blackened, and she felt as if she were staring into the very darkness of hell itself. "You belong to me. You are mine, and I shall _tame_ you." Clary resorted to the only thing she could think to do; she leant back as far as she could manage, and spat in his face. _

_Sebastian's shock was brief, but it was all the time she needed. Clary brought her fist to his sternum as soon as her arm was freed, winding him. She grabbed his steele as he doubled over in pain. If she could just reach the door, if she had only a few seconds more she could draw the rune and escape. She stretched her arm out in front of her - the steele began to glow and she held it aloft as her beacon of hope. It had just grazed the wall of the apartment when her feet were pulled out from under her, and she was flung backwards across the corridor. She hit the wall, hard. Clary heard something in her ankle crack and she knew there was no getting away. Not this time. She sunk to the floor, and the fight left her._

_Sebastian looked at the crumpled form of his sister, triumphant. She was beautiful when she was bloodied, and he was glorious in victory. He tutted at her, enjoying the moment, savouring it like a fine wine. "Clary, Clary, Clary..."_

"...Clary! ...Clary!" Her eyes flashed open to a very anxious and frustrated Jace. How long had he been trying to wake her, calling her name, too frightened to touch her? Her heart was stammering in her chest like a frightened animal caught in a trap, and her breath was coming in desperate gasps. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and there was cold wetness on her cheeks. "By the angel, Clary..."

She looked at Jace. His face was still beautiful, though lines of worry were forming on his brow where none were present a few weeks ago. His eyes were clouded with concern, and there was a regretful sadness in their molten depths. He waited until her breathing was under control before he spoke.

"It was him again", it was a statement, not a question, so Clary merely nodded in response. Jace closed his eyes, wishing silently that she had never been involved with any of it – but of course it was futile. She would always be in danger, because she would always come for him. It was her love for him that almost killed her. It was destined to be this way because nothing in heaven or hell could ever stop it: _the kind of love that could burn down the world, or raise it up in glory_. Jace reached for her, wanting to comfort her, but he stopped himself short. "Will you ever tell me what happened when I was gone?" He sounded subdued, and his hand drifted to the deep scar on his leg.

Clary sighed - she wanted to tell him eventually, it felt like ice in her heart knowing that she'd kept secrets from Jace. It was just that every time she tried she found that she couldn't possibly explain it. How could she even begin tell Jace, _her Jace_, that they would both be hunted to the ends of the Earth so that her demon brother could claim her as his own? However, perhaps it was true that sharing your fears lessened them. If anything could shed light on the blackness that wanted to creep through her veins and poison her by the minute, Clary would do it.

She refreshed his memory about how she used the fairy rings to communicate with Simon, and how the Seelie Queen had played her for a fool; anticipating her actions so that Sebastian may have the ring. What he didn't already know was the ramifications of his finding her wearing it. She dragged herself up into a sitting position and wrapped her sheet tightly around herself, folding her arms as she always did when she was worried.

"Jace, I... remember that night, in Prague?" she asked. He nodded, slightly puzzled by the segue but unwilling to interrupt. She looked at her hands folded neatly in her lap, "Well, you know I left you with some scratch marks?" Both their cheeks flushed at the memory, but as Clary glanced up through her eyelashes, Jace maintained an expression of confusion. "Please Jace, think. Don't make me say all of this..." Then there it was: the sharp glint of realisation, visible in the golden flecks of his irises.

"He had them too. He thought we...?" Jace searched her face for clues as to what she was telling him, but she cast her eyes downwards again. Her hair fell forwards, hiding her expression.

"Yes. It made him really angry," Clary began to gush, as if a wound had been opened and it flowed fast as a river. She feared that if she stopped talking then all these dark things she had kept bottled up would drown her. "He said that I was heartless for trying to _screw_ you into being good. That it made me like him. Then he started talking about how in ancient civilisations people married their siblings to keep bloodlines pure. He said I belong to him, and he kissed me and I couldn't get away. I couldn't defeat him... He was... He was better than me and he beat me. He slapped me down, and all I could do was lay there in the broken glass while he crushed me and spoke such mad things!" She gasped for breath, and surged on to the worst of it. Her voice became hollow, resigned. "He almost had my jeans undone. I managed to stab him with the glass, and I almost killed him. I could have killed him. Except that obviously I couldn't. So then what was the point in resisting anymore? He had me at every turn. So I washed up, and he took me to the Burren, and you know everything from there..." They sat in silence as she waited for him to say something. The weighted pause continued. When Clary could bear it no more, she looked up at Jace.

He was a destroying angel. The gold in his eyes moved as if it were a dancing flame, and the tension that racked his entire body was the very wrath of heaven. For a moment, she was terrified. The boy before her had never looked less like Jace, or more beautiful.

Jace saw Clary flinch and was pulled away from the dark recesses of his mind. She always managed to tether him to the world. His expression softened and he moved closer to her on the bed, untangling himself from his sheet. In the gentlest motion he was capable of he smoothed her hair, running his hand behind her ear and trailing it behind her jaw. It wasn't enough; but it had to be for now. For this was not the time for declarations of war and vengeance. The both of them needed comforting, and each ached for the touch of the other so strongly that neither could imagine how their counterpart could possibly feel its equal.

"I love you." Clary whispered, closing her eyes.

"Like a sickness and its cure together," Jace replied, the intensity of his voice making her spine tingle.

It was all that needed to be said. So they settled back into bed, Jace carefully tucking a sheet between them before wrapping a protective arm around her chest. Eventually he noticed Clary's breathing slowing as she slipped back into the world of dreams. He kissed her shoulder softly through the fabric, murmuring that he would always love her and protect her, that he'd die for her; hoping that on some level of her subconscious she would hear him. Then he rolled onto his back and gazed blankly at the ceiling. All night he lay awake. And he planned how he would kill her brother.


End file.
